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Trump Blames 9/11 on Bush
Bloomberg Television interviewed Donald Trump today and he had tough words for Osama bin Laden Mohammed Atta Al Qaeda George W. Bush.
Anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked The Donald if voters could trust him to keep America safe and if he would provide the “comforter-in-chief” role as Bush did after 9/11 and Obama after the Sandy Hook shooting. I’ll let the Daily Mail take it from here:
“OK, I think I have a bigger heart than all of them,” he said. “I think I’m much more competent than all of them.”
“When you talk about George Bush – I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.”
Ruhle jumped in, saying, “Hold on! You can’t blame George Bush for that.”
“He was president, okay?” Trump responded. “Blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
First, American presidents don’t “reign” and it’s alarming that a presidential frontrunner believes they do. Second, can we leave the “blame America first” nonsense to the Democrats? We don’t need two parties running down the country.
Oh, but he wasn’t done…
“If you look at Sandy Hook, those people are still begging for help. It’s a disaster, and it’s a disaster all over the place.”
“Government has proven to be a disaster during the Obama administration,” Trump pivoted. ‘What we need is a leader, we don’t have a leader.”
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT was the site of a horrific mass shooting. Hurricane Sandy was a large storm that struck the east coast. The two are unrelated — except in The Donald’s mind.
Dear fellow Republicans: The Trump circus continues only as long as you let it.
Published in General
Did Churchill fail because Hitler rose to power? It’s not about “failing”, it’s about causing – Bush didn’t cause the attacks. “Failing” to stop an unprecedented attack? If someone sneaks up behind you and sucker punches you, did you fail to protect yourself? If not, why not?
He has said many times that he’ll hire the best upon becoming President, thereby filling his knowledge/competency gaps. But who among the best would want to work for this man for more than a nanosecond.
He mistakes attitude for leadership, and while that may have served him well in the business world, it’s empty suit politics.
Yes absolutely you failed to protect yourself. Isn’t that blindingly obvious?
About Churchill, I don’t think he was Prime Minister when Hitler rose to power, or when someone else went to Munich. But I do think he had been attempting to make a political case against Hitler, and against appeasement, beginning just about when Hitler took power.
Advantage: Churchill.
It wasn’t unprecedented. Al Qaeda made many attacks against the United States before 9/11. Besides that there are connections between the first Trade Center bombing and 9/11. There was an overabundance of wishful thinking on the part of the Bush administration.
By the way we expect more out of our government than not causing violent acts against our citizens. This surely is a place where providing for the common defense might come into play.
Selectivity my backside. That’s the #1 reason I will never vote for any Paul ever. (Rand had me fooled for a brief moment, but he showed his true colors in the debates.)
I can’t wait for Ann Coulter‘s soon to be released spirited defense of 9/11 truthers.
There seems to be some foolish hope that one dumb thing or another that Donald Trump says will eliminate the need to debate our ludicrous immigration policy. We are well on our way to electing whichever Democrat gets the nomination. Given the idiotic circus of candidates that the Chamber of Commerce is making available it is difficult to see how we will avoid that. By 2020 nobody will be able to figure a way for a Republican to negotiate the Electoral College. The consequences of letting our country become like California will affect every element of freedom.
I will donate $20 to the charity of your choice if this happens before the next President of the United States is sworn in.
It seems like an unfair characterization and a cheap shot to me.
Having not followed her or Trump particularly closely, it seems like she is supporting him? I’m guessing that is because she cares a lot about immigration and no one else but Trump is talking about it with plain talk (i.e. it is taboo to hint that legal/illegal immigrants commit more crimes than natural born Americans; also taboo to suggest that family values are not the same across cultures)? Or maybe I missed it and they are talking about it?
I am a fan of Ann Coulter because she does the yeoman’s work of researching the statistics that no one wants published. As a Ricochetti, I wish she were more civil and less fringey, but I have to admire the hard facts she has produced in her book Adios America (full disclosure: I heard her interviewed on the Ricochet Podcast, the Dennis Prager show, and Need to Know podcast, but haven’t read her book yet.)
p.s. In case it matters, for the record I am not a Donald Trump supporter. He’s a lifelong Democrat with arrogant meddling utopian visions of technocratic competence as the solution to all our problems.
Yes, because everyone who is opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy is for open borders. The idea that some of us might actually think that immigration is an important issue and that Donald Trump is still a terrible candidate is obviously too ridiculous to contemplate. *eyeroll*
So, has Trump read “The Looming Tower”?
That of course is not what I said. I stated that Donald says dumb things and I will also say he is a terrible candidate and I don’t intend to vote for him. People who are silent on immigration are in general for open borders however and there is a deafening silence on the issue here at the Ricochet echo chamber. Libertarians and neocons will not win an election ever. I also said something a little different than open borders. Unfortunately there is really no one in the field that is much better than silent. That of course is why the Donald is still in the race despite always slipping in the polls. That is why I think the Democrats have already won the election.
Sorry, but I’ve seen too may bad faith arguments from Trump apologists; I’ve been accused of being an open borders Jeb supporter too many times. I’m done giving Trump apologists the benefit of a doubt. If this is unfair to you personally, then I apologize.
An intellect a mile wide and an inch deep. I would call Donald Trump a New York cabbie but after the Syrian migration, New York cabbies that spoke English all moved to Las Vegas and that was the second largest migration after WW II.
Absolutely. No super storm like Sandy [Hook] would dare strike the U.S. with The Donald at the helm. Unless, of course, he ordered one to strike Rich Lowry or Megyn Kelly.
Look, Trump is basically a conservative Democrat that was pushed out of the Democratic Party as it veered left toward socialism. Is it really a surprise that he still has his Democrat roots and beliefs? Of course! he thinks poorly of the GOP, how could he not?
Xennady
What should/could Bush have done to prevent 9-11?
I addressed this in my initial comment, but I’ll repeat.
The government had in its possession a laptop owned by Zachaious Moussoui. It failed to open it because the bureaucrats in charge didn’t want to be accused of profiling.
The information on that computer may alone have been enough to stop 9/11 if it had only been used- and I recall reading that the plotters had moved up the attack fearing that the government was about to discover it.
It seems to me that Bush- as head of the Executive branch of government- could and should have done a lot more to end the Clinton-era political correctness that hampered efforts to fight terrorism, including the poor decision to not look at Moussoui’s laptop more closely than not at all. He certainly could have issued an executive order or two.
But he did not.
Funny you should mention storms.
I was an avid defender of George Bush until Katrina. Then he stepped up to accept all blame for the fumbling incompetence of various democrats, the fact that FEMA hadn’t been expected to be a full service rescue force along the lines of Marvel’s Avengers, and the weather.
I distinctly remember feeling like Bush had cut me off at the knees because I found I was unable to defend him when he himself had stepped up to accept all blame, without any attempt to fight back against democrat lies.
So if Super Storm Sandy Hook ever washes ashore under another GOP establishment-led administration and destroys a democrat-run city even more thoroughly than the democrats have already destroyed it, I fully expect that the GOP president would once again end up held completely responsible for everything.
Watching how Marco Rubio made a fool of himself attempting to negotiate with Chuck Schumer, or the amazingly inept way Kevin McCarthy managed to undercut the Beghazi investigation, tells me that the GOP establishment still retains all the numb incompetence it had back in the Bush era.
I’ve had enough of it.
Except when he specifically expresses sympathy for socialist ideas — such as socialized medicine.
Has he ever actually explained why he’s no longer a Democrat in any thoughtful way?
I would like to see the whole field explain their immigration policies in a thoughtful way. Given what what we know about our prison population, welfare rolls and what is being promised with respect to healthcare, all we get is emotional appeals. I would at least respect any of them that said, “I am doing what I was paid to do.”
What a fantastic example of Monday morning quarterbacking masquerading as analysis.
Arguing if only this or that had happened is a wonderful past time for those who have never actually been involved in intelligence or criminal investigations. Putting the puzzle together is easy when you know what the picture looks like, the hard part is doing it without knowing.
It was not political correctness that prevent the FBI from looking at Moussaoui’s laptop, it was the law. That law was thankfully changed afterward but assigning blame to a president because an official 6 or six levels down obeyed the law is not only ridiculous, it is irresponsible.
I am no George W Bush fan. However, I have read two books, neither of which, I am sure, Donald Trump has read. The first was mentioned above, The Looming Tower. The second, Perfect Soldiers, gives a pretty comprehensive history of the men who took over and piloted the 9/11 planes. It has been some time since I read the second book, but it seems clear to me that the plot, the entering of the United States, the enrollment in classes to learn to fly, and all of the most important elements of the elaborate plan took place during the Clinton administration.
Now, whether George Bush, who was only in office for seven months, and spent a good deal of that time simply trying to undo the damage done by the exiting Clintonistas, or Bill Clinton, was responsible for happened on 9/11/2001 is an absurd argument made by a man who distains to read history.
The attack was unprecedented. No such use of commercial aircraft had ever been attempted or contemplated other than in the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. Trump’s attack on George W Bush brings back to my mind the concern I had when his campaign began, that he was a suicide bomber sent out to destroy the chances of the conservative movement in the GOP to win the presidency, a goal which seemed until recently to be almost certain. Is that anymore paranoid than one would have seemed on 9/10/2001?
There were escalating attacks by al Qaeda on the United States in the run up to 9/11. Is the enemy always obliged to attack in precedented ways? When there is no attempt to anticipate the enemies next move then I am in no mood to give the benefit of the doubt to politicians. Did Bush campaign about or work to improve capabilities with regard to his primary role. He did drone on about compassionate conservatism. College educated bureaucrats continued issuing visas to people that shouldn’t have been here just as they do today. Sure you might assign a larger role to Clinton in this attack but Bush should not be allowed to escape criticism just because he is a Republican.
I came through it unharmed.
Yes, and on his way out Clinton — who had missed an opportunity to drop a bomb on UBL — warned Bush that AQ was going to be a major problem.
Fact is, neither of these Presidents took the threat seriously enough to enact the immediate and comprehensive measures necessary to prevent an attack. The kind of full court press (against hostiles in the homeland) which might have coordinated the available intelligence and stopped the attack wasn’t unleashed. Even after the attacks, our homeland defense is compromised by politically-correct timidity and bureaucratic incompetence.
During those same pre-9/11 years, the NYPD was attacking street crime with a combination of data science, an intensive enforcement dragnet against all crimes large and small, and local precinct accountability which could have been a model for national terror prevention.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda and Monday morning quarterbacking notwithstanding, someone in the White House with Donald Trump’s “paranoia” about alien hostiles just might have flattened the information silos, relayed the word about the aviation student who didn’t care about learning how to land a plane, and rounded up all twenty terrorists before the killing began.
One of the problems in predicting Al Qaeda’s movements was that they purposefully sent out a great many messages all at once–that is, they increased the chatter tremendously–about attacks they were planning. It was impossible for our intelligence agencies to know which were real and which were fake threats.
One of the airports they picked–Logan–was under construction at the time. Again, they knew exactly what they were doing and how to get their activities past the intelligence agencies.
GW made it his life’s mission after the attacks to shore up our intelligence operations. But had he attempted any of those actions ahead of the attacks, the ACLU would have stopped him at every turn.
As it was, even the bank monitoring he achieved was more than the New York Times could tolerate. Then insisted on publishing the Treasury’s monitoring methods.
It is just wrong to say that the Bush administration could have prevented the attacks.
Oh, and our illustrious president Bill Clinton had a great opportunity to alert the American people to the increasing threat from Al Qaeda with the downing of TWA Flight 800 in July 1993.
Clinton and Reno just scooped up the remains of that airplane and hid them in Washington so no one would know that it was a terrorist attack.
I wouldn’t go as far as blaming Clinton entirely either, but it definitely wasn’t GW’s fault.
Do you mean the Donald Trump who in 2012 denounced Republicans for their “mean-spirited” policy on illegal immigrants and Romney’s policy on deportation as “maniacal”?
That’s the problem with the fraud that is Donald Trump. No one has a clue what they would really get if he were President.
This describes the Trump issue in the fewest words possible.
Let me expand on your last sentence.
The Trump circus continues only until the segment supporting him put their rage aside for a few minutes and realize the gambit of replacing their narcissistic thug with our narcissistic thug will neither serve us nor end well.